Road & Racecar Design, Fabrication & Preparation

News November 2016

Hi all, overdue for another workshop report, as always – just not enough hours in the day. While I’ve been getting Justin Butchers big block F150 finished & Mandy Sinclairs Chickadee Commodore upgraded & ready for the season, Christian Hillary’s Camaro has been in at the panel shop getting all the subtle body mods carried out including de-chroming , removing some body joints , some subtle front guard work for wheel clearance, closing all the panel gaps up nice & even & some sill/front valance mods, see if you can spot the changes over a stock Camaro. Also, while it was in the panelshop I’ve been doing some engine dress up stuff, mounting front drive accessories, fitting & plumbing up custom valve covers & nice plug lead routing & securing.

The Chickadee Commodore was quite a bit worse on close inspection than initially thought, all those years of racing with the occassional crash had taken its toll. A lot of seam-welding & bracing was required to get some structural integrity back into the chassis. The pics show the new front bumper with brake ducts, there are no bumpers like this available “off the shelf” that comply with the CMC (Central Muscle Car) Gp2 rules so theres been a lot of custom work gone in here. We will take a mould of this unit so we can “repeat” the bumper in the future.

The pics also show the new engine installation & some of the under-bonnet work done. We’re now using Endevour Engineering floating rear hubs/axles, upgraded rear brakes & I’ve built new larger headers for the new engine.

As of the end of Nov, the car with Andrew Sinclair driving, has placed 2nd in Gp2 at the Hampton Downs Supercar meeting & won the Gp2 class at the Pukekohe V8 Supercar meeting. We’re still working through a few teething problems but so far so good.